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Settlers of Catan!

Over the weekend, my friends invited me over to their house for game night. Now I’m not exactly what you would call a true “gamer”, unless you count Life, Sorry, Uno, and Apples to Apples. But I figured it would be fun to at least try a few new games, so I went over and joined them for game night.

Fortunately, the first game on the agenda was one I had played a few times before: Settlers of Catan. For those of you who’ve never played, I’ll give a brief (attempted, anyway) explanation of how the game works. The technical description of the game is provided below:

3-4 Players, Ages 10+Duration approximately 90 minutesA classic economic game in which a die roll determines what goods players produce each turn. Players collect sets of goods to create roads, settlements, and cities, scoring points for each. The game ends once a player scores 10 points.

However, this description makes the game sound fairly boring. So I’m going to explain how game play works, to hopefully entice you to check it out from the library during your next visit!

Here’s how it works. The board is circular, with hexagon tiles connected in a honeycomb pattern. Each tile represents a different resource, such as lumber, brick, grain, sheep, and ore. Each hexagon tile has a number on it, representing a die roll.

Players place their settlements (think Monopoly hotels) and roads on the connecting borders of various resources across the board. Each time the die roll matches the number on a player’s resource, they receive a card for that resource. Some numbers get rolled more often than others, so you have to be very strategic about where you place your settlement!

As players begin to collect resources, they can use them to build more roads, settlements, and cities, or purchase development cards. Development cards can be extra points, or useful tools to help your game play. Different resources are needed for roads, settlements, etc, so players can trade with one another if needed. But if a player has a resource in high demand, watch out because he can massively increase the price for trades. Alternately, someone eager to trade for a resource might need it to win the game, so be careful about who you trade with!

The first player to score 10 points wins the game. And regardless of whether you or your friend wins, the game is fun either way! I highly encourage you to check out Settlers of Catan, and give it a try. If it still doesn’t sound fun to you, consider one of our other fun games available for checkout from the library!